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Full-Text Articles in Law
Prohibiting The Punishment Of Poverty: The Abolition Of Wealth-Based Criminal Disenfranchisement, Amy Ciardiello
Prohibiting The Punishment Of Poverty: The Abolition Of Wealth-Based Criminal Disenfranchisement, Amy Ciardiello
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The majority of U.S. states disenfranchise formerly incarcerated individuals because of their poverty by conditioning re-enfranchisement on the full payment of legal financial obligations. This Note discusses the practice of wealth-based criminal disenfranchisement where the inability to pay legal financial obligations, including fines, fees, restitution, interest payments, court debts, and other economic penalties, prohibits low-income, formerly incarcerated individuals from voting. This Note argues this issue has not been adequately addressed due to unsuccessful legislative reforms and failed legal challenges. An examination of state policies, federal and state legislative reforms, and litigation shows that a more drastic state legislative solution is …
Missed Opportunities: The Unrealized Equal Protection Framework In Maher V. Roe And Harris V. Mcrae, Amelia Bailey
Missed Opportunities: The Unrealized Equal Protection Framework In Maher V. Roe And Harris V. Mcrae, Amelia Bailey
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Note focuses on two cases, Maher v. Roe and Harris v. McRae, and argues that they represent watershed moments in the reproductive rights movement because they positioned abortion as a fundamental right in name only. In both cases, the Supreme Court sanctioned severe funding restrictions and refused to grant poor women the right to state and federal assistance for elective and “nontherapeutic” abortions. “Non-therapeutic abortion” refers to those abortions performed or induced when the life of the mother is not endangered if the fetus is carried to term or when the pregnancy of the mother is not the …
Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel
Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel
Articles
Gideon v. Wainwright is more than a “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in the field of constitutional criminal procedure. As evidenced by the range of celebrators of Gideon’s Fiftieth Anniversary (extending far beyond the legal academy) and Gideon’s inclusion in the basic coverage of high school government courses, Gideon today is an icon of the American justice system. I have no quarrel with that iconic status, but I certainly did not see any such potential in Gideon when I analyzed the Court’s ruling shortly after it was announced in March of 1963. I had previously agreed to write an article for …
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Evidence-Based Sentencing And The Scientific Rationalization Of Discrimination, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
This Article critiques, on legal and empirical grounds, the growing trend of basing criminal sentences on actuarial recidivism risk prediction instruments that include demographic and socioeconomic variables. I argue that this practice violates the Equal Protection Clause and is bad policy: an explicit embrace of otherwise- condemned discrimination, sanitized by scientific language. To demonstrate that this practice raises serious constitutional concerns, I comprehensively review the relevant case law, much of which has been ignored by existing literature. To demonstrate that the policy is not justified by countervailing state interests, I review the empirical evidence underlying the instruments. I show that …
Procedural Obstacles To Reviewing Ineffective Assistance Of Trial Counsel Claims In State And Federal Postconviction Proceedings., Eve Brensike Primus
Procedural Obstacles To Reviewing Ineffective Assistance Of Trial Counsel Claims In State And Federal Postconviction Proceedings., Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
Ineffective assistance of trial counsel is one of the most frequently raised claims in state and federal postconviction petitions. This is hardly surprising given reports of trial attorneys who refuse to investigate their cases before trial, never meet with their clients before the day of trial, and fail to file any motions or object to inadmissible evidence offered at trial. Unfortunately, the current structure of indigent defense funding makes it impossible for many public defenders to provide effective representation to their clients.
The Equal Protection Clause And Imprisonment Of The Indigent For Nonpayment Of Fines, Michigan Law Review
The Equal Protection Clause And Imprisonment Of The Indigent For Nonpayment Of Fines, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The practice of imprisonment for failure to pay a fine levied for a criminal violation originated in twelfth-century England; its subsequent unanimous acceptance in the United States is manifested in the provisions in the statutes of every state and of the federal government authorizing imprisonment for nonpayment of fines. A few states not only commit the defendant to jail for nonpayment of the fine, but impose hard labor as well. Some states, however, have mitigated to a degree the harshness of the practice. For example, Arizona restricts the total period of confinement for the crime and the default of the …
Constitutional Law-State Court Enforcement Of Race Restrictive Covenants As State Action Within Scope Of Fourteenth Amendment, John A. Huston S.Ed.
Constitutional Law-State Court Enforcement Of Race Restrictive Covenants As State Action Within Scope Of Fourteenth Amendment, John A. Huston S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
The current housing shortage with the overcrowded living conditions and substandard accommodations which it imposes on the most numerous classes of society has made particularly significant in the competition for housing areas the discriminations generally enforced against negroes and other racial minority groups. Both normal population growth and the suspension of new construction during the great depression and the late war have contributed to an emergency in which the circumstances of our negro population are materially worse than those of any other group. Aggravating this result has been the shift in negro population occasioned by the wartime demand for industrial …
Constitutional Law - State Control Of Interstate Migration Of Indigents, Edward W. Adams
Constitutional Law - State Control Of Interstate Migration Of Indigents, Edward W. Adams
Michigan Law Review
The interstate migration of persons presents the United States with one of its most acute economic and social problems and carries in its wake a series of significant legal questions. Of paramount importance is the constitutional question whether the migration of indigents is subject to state control. To lend understanding to this problem, attention will be called first to the basic economic and social urges underlying interstate migration and second to the position of the indigent as defined by traditional legal concepts. To complete the discussion, suggestions will be offered for corrective federal legislation.